Three years on, FIFA is still mining the 2022 World Cup final for content — and honestly, who can blame them. The federation released a 25-second clip on X this week filmed from the side of the Lusail Stadium stage, showing Messi walking toward his teammates with the trophy in his hands. You've seen the frontal shots a thousand times. This angle is different.
The clip captures something the broadcast cameras didn't linger on: the crowd in the background, hundreds of phones raised, catching Messi's approach from the stands while the man himself was mid-stride toward the pile of blue and white shirts waiting for him.
What Argentina actually had to get through
Context matters here. Argentina didn't cruise to that trophy. They lost to Saudi Arabia in the group stage — one of the most jarring upsets in World Cup history — then had to beat Australia, the Netherlands on penalties, Croatia 3-0, and finally France in a final that finished 3-3 before another shootout, this one ending 4-2.
Mbappé had a hat-trick in that final. France were not a passive victim. Argentina had to drag that game back twice and then hold their nerve in the shootout. That's what makes the footage land the way it does.
It was Argentina's third World Cup title — 1978, 1986, and now 2022 — and Messi's first after five attempts spanning nearly two decades of international football. That's the weight behind the image of him walking across that stage.
Argentina arrive in 2026 with a target on them
With 85 days until the 2026 tournament kicks off across the United States, Mexico, and Canada (June 11 to July 19), Argentina head in as defending champions. They're in Group J, facing Algeria on June 16 in Kansas City, Austria on June 22 in Dallas, and Jordan on June 27.
Defending champions at a World Cup rarely repeat — the last team to do it was Brazil in 1958 and 1962. That history is baked into Argentina's odds for 2026, and Scaloni's squad will need to navigate a 48-team format that creates more variables and more potential banana-skin moments than 2022 ever presented.
Before any of that, Argentina have a home friendly lined up after the Finalissima against Spain was cancelled. One last tune-up before the tournament. The footage from Lusail is a nice reminder of what they're defending. Replicating it is an entirely different matter.
